Goodreads' meat and potatoes is centered around readers interacting with each other similarly to way people do on Facebook. In fact, to me, the user interface at Goodreads looks very much like Facebook. And like Facebook, Goodreads initially makes all privacy settings turned off by default to get new accounts to start sharing books lists right away (I would highly recommend turning privacy settings on when you get around to it). You get started pretty quickly and find out what other Goodread users thought of a title. The Goodreads community seems pretty straightforward in their book reviews. If a title delighted them they'll probably recommend it was worth reading. If a title deterred them they will often mention that they wouldn’t recommend it and why. As a highlighted feature of the website readers also share their books lists. Finally the socialization side of Goodreads encourages initiating friend requests, it's interesting to see what other friends have read in the past. Friends can send each other recommendations of titles one may not have considered before or what they may want to consider reading in the future.
On the other side of that same issues Goodreads offers automated book recommendations that come from the site (not the reading community) and while it's interesting the recommendations are not great from my experience. The site generated book recommendations usually at stays within the genre of other books one already read. But the recommendations don’t really appeal to me more than the genre type. From my understanding, the automated book recommendations are compiled from an algorithm that computes the chance of someone’s interest level from their account's metadata, personal information, and who knows whatever information Goodreads monitors from account activity (probably information that the readers themselves may not be aware is collected on them). While this approach is economical for running a website, the algorithm only infers recommendations from someone's list of things they may have liked in the past. It's more effective for a human to give another person a book recommendation. Humans communicate in real-time and any ambiguities about what a person wants in the moment are clearer. For example I consider myself to be a sci-fi fan and I have my particular favorite reads. I tend to read Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke type stuff. From knowing that in a conversation a person might recommend to me to check out Stephen Baxter, who writes in a similar scope as the two previous authors. The first Goodreads recommendation to me after I entered in my previously read book list was, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Uhh...no thanks? The nice thing that since Goodreads is just a website, it can never balk at one's indecisiveness to its crappy recommendations.
All in all, I think that the Goodreads website is a good tool to keep in the shed. It's nice to access their genre lists and book reviews. However like all tools that are multifaceted: Goodreads is only good for really one or two things and after that, you'll never use the rest of it's features.
On the other side of that same issues Goodreads offers automated book recommendations that come from the site (not the reading community) and while it's interesting the recommendations are not great from my experience. The site generated book recommendations usually at stays within the genre of other books one already read. But the recommendations don’t really appeal to me more than the genre type. From my understanding, the automated book recommendations are compiled from an algorithm that computes the chance of someone’s interest level from their account's metadata, personal information, and who knows whatever information Goodreads monitors from account activity (probably information that the readers themselves may not be aware is collected on them). While this approach is economical for running a website, the algorithm only infers recommendations from someone's list of things they may have liked in the past. It's more effective for a human to give another person a book recommendation. Humans communicate in real-time and any ambiguities about what a person wants in the moment are clearer. For example I consider myself to be a sci-fi fan and I have my particular favorite reads. I tend to read Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke type stuff. From knowing that in a conversation a person might recommend to me to check out Stephen Baxter, who writes in a similar scope as the two previous authors. The first Goodreads recommendation to me after I entered in my previously read book list was, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Uhh...no thanks? The nice thing that since Goodreads is just a website, it can never balk at one's indecisiveness to its crappy recommendations.
All in all, I think that the Goodreads website is a good tool to keep in the shed. It's nice to access their genre lists and book reviews. However like all tools that are multifaceted: Goodreads is only good for really one or two things and after that, you'll never use the rest of it's features.
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